Happy September everyone! We have had warning after warning of unusually high temperatures in the UK this Summer. Look at what happened though. The heatwaves never touched us here in Scotland, the BBQ is going rusty, I got a cold shoulder top on Vinted which I never got to wear and it is early September. Time to come to terms with it.
Halloween approaches and rather than clinging on the fleeting promise of a belated Summer, I choose to be excited about it! If your family is equally excited to embrace the festive spirit of Autumn, join me while I’m looking into ways to engage the little ones in fun, educational activities. (For bilingual families, this offers a perfect opportunity to combine holiday excitement with early learning, while fostering language development at the same time.)
One of the best ways to do this is through themed morning baskets!
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What is a Morning Basket?
The concept of a morning basket originates from the Charlotte Mason homeschooling philosophy, where it was used to create a calm and focused start to the day. Traditionally, it included various educational materials that encouraged learning and curiosity in a gentle, low-pressure way.
How do you use a Morning Basket?
Nowadays, morning baskets have evolved beyond homeschooling and they are basically becoming a method for parents to engage their children in fun, structured activities. Many families use morning baskets to combine learning while encouraging exploration and play.
Some parents use them as an opportunity to connect and learn together over breakfast. Others use them to encourage independent learning while the parents put a load of laundry on and finish their tax return. It is quite a versatile concept!
A morning basket is a simple collection of activities designed to kick off the day with purposeful, engaging learning. Typically, a morning basket includes items that cater to various learning needs, such as puzzles, books, sensory objects, and creative activities. As kids will start conquering concepts and honing skills, it is a good idea to swap some items for different ones regularly. You can also theme your morning basket to inspire a sense of occasion and bring a seasonally relevant twist to the routine.
Why Use a Halloween-Themed Morning Basket?
Halloween is a magical time for both kids and adults! A themed morning basket is a great way to mix-up the morning routine and get a child excited for both the day and the season ahead. (For bilingual families, you can make this an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and concepts in both languages.)
Skills your children can acquire through a seasonal morning basket:
- Language: Expand their Autumn and Halloween-related vocabulary (bilingual families can do so in both languages). Introduce pre-writing and writing exercises with relevant themes (trace a cobweb, cut out a ghost, spell “spooky”).
- Creativity: With colouring sheets and craft materials, kids can be creative and imaginative while immersing themselves in the season.
- Numeracy: Nothing easier than theming your usual early maths tools with some pumpkin pie dividing or spider counting.
Building Your Halloween Morning Basket
Here are a few ideas and goodies you can gather up to create the ultimate Halloween morning basket for your little ones!
Halloween Books
Halloween books are the single best way to reinforce vocabulary, nurture imagination and introduce Halloween traditions and themes. So here are our 10 current favourite Halloween picture books, in no particular order. (Picked by my 2 under 4s):
- Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
- The Grotlyn by Benji Davies
- Gustavo the Shy Ghost by Flavia Z. Drago
- Leila the Perfect Witch by Flavia Z. Drago
- Five Spooky Friends by Danielle McLean and Rosalind Maroney
- Pick a Pumpkin by Patricia Toht and Jarvis
- We’re going on a Ghost Hunt by Martha Mumford and Cherie Zamazing
- Halloween yoga by Teresa Anne Power and Emma Allen
- I am bat by Morag Hood
- Cat learns to listen at Moonlight School by Simon Puttock and Ali Pye
Sensory Play
Sensory exploration helps children’s cognitive growth through hands-on activities. This is especially important for pre-schoolers, whose fine motor skills are still developing. Here are some Halloween-themed sensory toys and activities that would be perfect for your morning basket:
Frozen Halloween Characters
Freeze small Halloween-themed figures in ice cube trays and let kids “rescue” them by melting the ice with a dropper of warm water.
Halloween Slime
Create your own spooky slime with glitter, small Halloween confetti, or mini plastic spiders. Kids can stretch, squish, and mold it.
Autumnal / Spooky Sensory Bin
Fill a bin with dry rice or pasta dyed orange. Add in small pumpkins, Halloween erasers, or mini skeletons for kids to dig through. You can also find a lot of sensory bin kits on Etsy, with a pre-made curated selection of sensory toys and materials.
Squishy Pumpkins or Stress Balls
These soft toys provide a satisfying tactile experience for little hands – and they’re also great for pre-writing practice.
Spooky play dough:
Offer Halloween-themed play dough in colours like orange, black, or purple. Add cinnamon or pumpkin spice for a seasonal scent, and cut with seasonal cookie cutters like bats, ghosts and pumpkins to list a few.
Eyes-closed touch & feel test: Have your child pair the texture with the right Halloween-related object. Here’s a few pair ideas:
- Piece of felt or velour off-cut (Witch’s hat)
- Leather off-cut or leather upholstery sample (Bat wing)
- Grapes (Eyeballs)
- Bowl of pebbles (Graveyard)
- Pumpkin guts (Actual guts 🤪)
- Plastic spoons (Bones)
- Sandpaper (Ogre’s tongue)
- Absolutely nothing at all (Ghost)
Spider Web Rescue: Create a web using masking tape on a small box and place mini Halloween-themed toys inside. Or instead you can create a web using making tape across a doorway, and stick little toys or pom-poms on it. Once the web is up, have your child rescue the poor toys with a pair of tongs or tweezers (great for fine motor skills!).
Craft Materials
Pumpkins, bats, and witches galore! There is not shortage of seasonal craft materials, so here is a brainstorm to get you inspired and going:
- Halloween stickers
- Googly eyes
- Coloured pipe cleaners
- Ink stamps
- Foam die cuts
- Craft Feathers
- Beads
- Orange and black tissue paper
- Pom-poms
- And my favourite thing ever: Halloween-themed washi tape!
🧡 Spooky Season Washi Tape by justinegilbuena on Etsy 🧡
Hand-illustrated Fall goodness for littles that love sticky things (and stationery nerds like me).
🖤 Spooky stamps art washi tape by Jon Turner on Etsy 🖤
Are you kidding me?? You’ve done it again Etsy
Feature: Halloween-Themed Early Learning Printable Morning Basket Pack
For lack of resources like this in our minority target language, I actually created this Halloween-Themed Early Learning Printable Morning Basket Pack for my own kiddo! I wanted something fun and educational to fit into our morning routine, so I decided to design the activities myself. Most of the illustrations are hand-drawn by me, and now I’m excited to make it available in English for other families. You can grab it from my printables shop or Etsy store. Feel free to check it out—it’s a great way to add some spooky fun to learning time!
I have included:
- Counting cards
- Seasonal vocabulary (in English)
- CVC word builders
- Flashcards
- Full moon “oo” words
- Colouring sheets
- Bunting – in full size and miniature
- Letter matching
- Size sorting
- Lacing cards
- Puzzles
- 10-frames
- Cutting practice sheet
- Cute basket crafts for letter and number sorting
- And more bits and bobs!
Tips for Using Printables in Your Morning Basket
- Mix and Match: I am all for printables, because paired with a good laminator you can pretty much materialise anything you want. I would recommend using printables alongside physical items like toys, books, or crafts in order to keep variety in the morning basket and make it visually rich.
- Routine Use: Incorporate the morning basket into a daily or weekly routine leading up to Halloween. By doing so, you help reinforce concepts over time.
Conclusion: Make Learning Fun This Halloween
Thanks so much for reading. I hope this post has given you some inspiration to bring the magic of the season into your learning routines, whether it be in the form of a morning basket or not. I am constantly amazed by how much my little ones absorb. For that reason, having some sort of prepared material to throw at them has been a lifesaver.
What about you? Are you good at coming up with activities and entertainment on the spot?
Ready to add a dash of spooky fun to your child’s morning routine?
Until next time!
Related:
Your Guide to Free Homeschool Resources (+ Free Kids’ Planner Pages 🦊 🍄)
9 Low-key & Cozy Fall Birthday Ideas (for little introverts)
The Best Bilingual Parenting Approaches (& an Intro to Plurilingualism)
